"There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization." - Werner Herzog

Film is the art of using moving images and sound to create and express meaning. It is an unusual medium, born of a large scale industry, yet making intimate meaning, often to mass audiences. The beginnings of film saw hosts of artists from other forms flocking to this new medium, trying to understand how to paint with light, how to conjure in filmic time, how to frame a moving image. From there began the research into, and the mining of, a rich and diverse filmic vocabulary that is the heritage of this medium.

More than a hundred years later, filmmaking seems to be poised on the brink of a new kind of democratic dream, where a camera might be wielded by many more people, like a pen. The easy availability of professional image and sound recording equipment could make many of us filmmakers. This increased democracy of means still searches for the same spirit of experimentation and rigour of craftsmanship. This search links the present day and future filmmaker to the longer history of film.

The digital and the celluloid as mediums of film have now had a long shared existence for a few decades, with some parallel and some intersecting trajectories. The big industrial film continues to prosper, but alongside has emerged an equally vibrant small film; These films may tell personal stories, question and investigate issues, or quite simply explore colour or abstraction. From fiction to documentaries; and video art to installations, film has found a diversity of forms, contexts, and viewing platforms making it an art practice that will endure in the years to come.